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Monday, 29 June 2015

Discussions--Series 27--ELT Professionals Around the World

Please take a look at Post 68 and then come back here. Thanks.

Discussions--Series
Twenty-Seven

Topic 94

Naghizade
Mohammad

Lack of an
important wh question in English

Take this sentence as an example: he is the SECOND child of his family.
suppose you are going to ask a question whose answer is the SECOND. what wh
question you use here? do not you think this word question is absent in English
and you have no choice other than making a combined word question with what.

Mohammad, since you are talking about a person (also living thing) you
would use the word "Who" to ask about that. "Who is the second
child of your family?"

In some languages, there could be a lack of words to express some idea - from
the perspective of another language speaker but every language always has a way
to express ideas. That's the nature of what language is - a finite number of
words that can be put together in an infinite number of ways to communicate
something.

English has a "dual" interrogative, meaning "which of
two" - though it is no longer used as such. It is "whether", the
wh- equivalent of "either" and "other". That is why
"whether" always refers to a choice.

As for the question - if the answer is to be "second", and we don't
know which position the child is (first, second, third, fourth, [...], last),
then the question doesn't need a specific wh word : "which" position
is he in the family? And the word is NOT "what", it is
"which".

If you assume he is the second, and you want to confirm that, then it is not a
wh question, it is a yes-no one.

..., all the questions you put here were somehow yes no question or
alternative questions(choose one among two choices). what is the date today
also has nothing to do with this question and can not resolve the issue, I
think, as David said, no choice we have but finding another way to express our
thought. Yes, no question is one way.

I am not sure, of course, but it seems that the question pertains to a
synonym of the Hindi word, "kaunsa", meaning, roughly, "which
one". So, if you had 48 children, and I saw one of them, I could ask you
"Yeh kaunsa hai?" meaning, roughly, "Which one is this?"
But "which one" in English may not refer only to the birth-order. It
can also mean "Is this your wife's child?" or something else
entirely. A 1-word English translation would be something like
"whichth" and such a word, of course, does not exist, in English or
perhaps in any Romance language or any language as deeply influenced by Romance
languages as English.

The word "which" can also be used on its own - particularly
when the reference is clear from context. The word "one" is in effect
a nominaliser - to make it clear we are referring to a singular countable. This
was a "native" English development.

Which is it?

Which is he/she? First, second, third ... the one at the end, the beginning ...
the tall one, the short one?

Which one is it?

Which one is he/she?

Syntactic/Grammatical-Semantic of "whichth" exist in German (de wie vielte
"the how muchth"), and other languages - French (Tu viendras le
combien? - What date will you come - roughly "on the how much will you
come?). It has nothing to do with any Romance language influence, but rather
each language might or might not create such forms through internal
development.

Where such grammar is concerned, English has little or no Romance influence.
English is as Germanic in its grammar as all other Germanic languages, and
where there has been influence, it is in (1) very formal and very academic
language (certain uses of "of", for example), and (2) prefixes and
suffixes, which are essentially vocabulary borrowing (re-, -able, etc.). Where
tense, pronouns, relatives and the rest are concerned, English is very
Germanic. This is what makes it relatively difficult for Roance speakers to
learn, because the English they actually learn is Germanic in grammar, and only
30% Romance in vocabulary - and in more colloquial/everyday English, even less
"Romantic".

The "myth" that English has been heavily influenced by Germanic is
mainly a vocabulary count one; however, of the 100 most common words in
English, only 2 are not Germanic, and in total only a third of words in English
- in all registers - are of French origin, then on top of that Latin as well as
some Spanish, Portuguese and Italian loans exist. The more formal and academic,
the more "Latinate" the vocabulary is, though the grammar is only
moderately more "Latinate". The dictionary might be 50% Latinate
(including words that are really Greek) - but the dictionary is never a good
measure of what words are really used in English or any highly literate
language like that.

There is also another assumption, that German and Dutch and other Germanic
languages have NOT had French or Latinate influence. In some ways, they have
had as much - and in ways we often do not recognise. English has borrowed the
Latin word "depend" - and we use it in a Germanic strucure (depend ON
something). German has translated the Latin word (de-pendere "off-hang"
> abhangen (ab = off) - er haengt ab "he depends on", and has also
the Latin semantics (off rather than "on"). Normally, German also
uses "an" like in English to express total dependence.

Language influence is a very complex business, and most people who talk about
it unfortunately have not really investigated what it means - often because we
naturally have read or heard this from writers/people who we assume know what
they are talking about.

The kin terms in the three Germanic languages mentioned are interesting:

The first six in all are all Germanic, however in English and German the last
two are from French. In Dutch, "oom" "uncle" is Germanic,
but "tante" is French. The difference between "aunt" and
"tante" is time and dialect of borrowing - "aunt" is from
Old Norman French ("aunte"/"ante"), while "tante"
is later, adn from Isle de France French (ta ante "your aunt" >
"tante"). The native English word for uncle is/was found in regional
dialects, particular the south and south-west, namely "neam" (<
"min eam" "my uncle").

Just an example to show how complex the discussion of Romance influence - any
linguistic influence - can be.

Another one is : Where does he come in the family - first, second, third ...
last?

Like(2)

Me

I wonder if it's a matter of culture. Asking for the position of a child
is a common enquiry in Thamizh and Thelugu--two South Indian languages.

Many have asked me the same question several times and I could only say: which
nth child are you/is s(he)? It seems to me this serves the purpose best and the
others are elaborative in nature--that is you have to several words to get
across the meaning.

Is such enquiry common enough among native speakers of English?

Another thing that comes to my mind is relationship with others or strangers.
We tend to use uncle, auntie, one word expressions for (elder/younger) brother/
sister as naturally as we'd use them to our relatives. This is a cultural thing,
too.

Mary - KRL is right - there is a cultural element involved. It is a
pretty common one in Dravidian societies (of southern and central India) as
well as Australian Aboriginal and Papuan societies - which are all probably
distantly realted (all are part of the so-called Australoid race - an outmoded
term). Australian Aboriginal people and Dravidians have the same mitochrondrial
DNA (i.e. they have common female ancestors), and there seems to have been
another Dravidian influx to Australia around 5000 years ago (all shown by
genetic studies - as well as the interesting fact that the dingo is the same
dog as the southern Asian dog - with the same name as commonly found in India
("kutaka" and variants of that).

In the Australian language I speak, and neighbouring Australian and Papuan
langauges are similar - as are many languages in South East Asia, the Far East
and so on - there are separate terms for hings like oldest child or oldest son,
oldest daughter, youngest child or youngest son, youngest daughter, and often
for the second, third, etc. In my language, for example - kuthaig is oldest
child, sipapa second child in family, ngugamuz 2nd oldest daughter, dhœdhalaig
- middle child, and so on. The general term for child is kazi.

The child's position in the family has cultural significance - the oldest son,
for example, potentially becomes the clan leader, and the second oldest his
"deputy" - it is a society where there are always two leaders, the
oldest brother and the next oldest. This is also reflected in the gods - the
two chief gods are brothers, Thœgai the oldest, and Kang his brother - they are
agriculture and weather gods.

I think the cultural answer is the right one. In our (western) society a
person's place in the family line is not all that important. Certainly not as
in other societies. For example in Indonesian when talking about brothers or
sisters it is usual to talk about whether they are older or younger, being more
important than if they are male or female. In Australia we would usually just
talk about brothers or sisters and make no distinction of place in the family.

If it is important to know then we would usually ask if you are the eldest or
youngest, remembering that most families in Australia are 2 children or less
(on average). Of course we can also ask if someone is the middle child if there
are three siblings.

That is the joy of every language - there is in general always more than
one way to skin a cat.

Unlike(3)

Me

"suppose you are going to ask a question whose answer is the
SECOND. what wh question you use here?"

The following have been suggested:
i. "which" position is he in the family?
ii. 'what's the child's birth order?
iii. Is your child the first born, middle born or last born?
iv. A more natural question: Is she/he the eldest?
the most common question would be: Is she/he the oldest/eldest?
v. Standard English grammar has a wh-question for this: Which child is he in
order of birth?
vi. Is s/he the first/second/ third ...child?
vii. which is he, oldest, second oldest, youngest?

I thank the co-discussants for the variety.

A. But my question still stands:
Is (Was) such enquiry COMMON enough among native speakers of English to have
(had) a common way of asking?

B.iii, iv, vi may not fetch the desired answer if the response is a mere ‘no’
unless of course the choices are provided in the enquiry.

C. Are (were) i, ii, v, vii alternatives just grammatically or are (were) they
in use?

D. What do you think of:
which nth child are you/is s(he)?
(This conveys the thought crisply and economically, too.)

Fiction has been my best guide and in none of the thousands of novels that I've
read and that have been set in the last century and describe social life in
some detail I could find an answer. I'm a non-native user of English and seek
your help.

A. in the right context, yes. For example, it comes up when knowledge of
exact position is needed. My mother is one of seven chuldren in her family -
and so when talking about the uncles and aunties, often we do mention first or
second - and Aunty X - where does she come - 5th or 6th?

C. I know why you say "grammatically" - but it is the wrong word to
use. Semantically is a better term, seeing we are not talking about grammar
here, but about valid use of language - which is based on semantics and all
that that entails. For example, the more formal the words used, the less
commonly they are actually used. "Birth order" is
"abnormal" from this point of view.

i. "which" position is he in the family? : correct in all ways - as
long as the context makes it clear we are referring to age position (oldest/first,
next oldest/second, etc.).

ii. 'what's the child's birth order? : "abnormal" - it applies
technical (medical) jargon in a way that does not sit comfortably in normal
speech (e.g. when triplets are born, there is a birth order - which was born first,
then second, then last).

v.. Standard English grammar has a wh-question for this: Which child is he in
order of birth? - this also is strange - perhaps better would be "Which
one is he in order of age" rather than "birth". But it is also
formal rather than standard. Somewhat technical.

vii. "Which is he, oldest, second oldest, youngest?" - this is very
common, normal, everyday, formal.

"Where do you come//What position are you ... in the family - oldest,
second oldest, youngest?"
"What are you - oldest, second oldest, middle ...?"
"You have a lot of brothers and sisters, I see. Where [in the order] do
you come -oldest, second oldest ...."

Unlike(1)

Me

Thanks, Rod. But then what's wrong with 'which nth child are you?' would
like to know. Words are created everyday, new structures appear, new
punctuation uses happen, new grammar comes into being.

It is unnatural and contrived, and takes more effort to understand than
simply "where do you come in the family?" or things like that.

More importantly it doesn't mean what you want it to mean. It means that there
are more than one nth child, and which one of those nth children are you. This
is because "which" asks bout choices in general - which is its
strength.

Words are NOT created every day, NOR do new structures appear everyday, NOR
does new grammar appear everyday - or any of the others things you mention.

Language changes amazingly slowly - and radical developments like these are
much much less common than people seem to believe, and the things you mention
happen naturally, and very rarely on purpose. Also - such changes happen
naturally according to need. English simply does not have the need for such a
wh-form, because we can do the same thing much more clearly and efficiently
with existing material.

I was reminded of this yesterday in the Times, which as a centre fold had the
facsimile of Times of yesterday's date 200 years ago, when the report of the
winning of the Battle of Waternloo had come through. It was perfectly
understandable with relatively little change compared to formal English now.

I think it really is just the cultural assumption that we are not very
interested in the child's position in the family- the only reasons we might ask
is because we generally believe that being the oldest or youngest has an
influence on personality- we tend to expect an oldest to be more independent
and solitary and a youngest (who we often refer to as the baby of the family)
to be more Mummy-ish and sociable and less mature. Interest in this in the UK
centres around our obsession with children being independent- parents are
regarded as successful in relation to how early their children leave home. A
rather patronising comment is sometimes made 'Is she/he still living at home?'
Implying parents have failed in their parenting!
But I love whicth - pity we can't vote for new words to invite into the language!

What is your birth order in the the family? Are you the eldest in your
family? How many brother and sisters to do you have? Really? Where do you fall
in the birth order? It is true that Americans don't really care, unless to
discuss controlling characteristics (eldest), misfit characteristics (middle
child), or entitled characteristics (youngest). Those rankings are rather like
astrology, only believed by a few.

Again, "what is your (or his) birth order in the family?" is
the accepted phrasing for this question. I am a native speaker and English
professor. It isn't that hard a question, really-- we Just need to know the
term "birth order".

It's not the question word that is lacking or if it is it's lacking in
every language that I know. What may be lacking is the word or phrase that is
the sign of 'birth order in the family' for want of a better phrase. Imagine
that the perfect word existed. You would still ask either what X are you (in
your family? or where is your X in your family? We don't ask this question very
often (who cares?) but if we did then a phrase like 'birth order' would sound
perfectly natural with regular use.

I am also a native speaker - and I would not consider it really
acceptable in everyday speaking because it is too clinical? Not that I wouldn't
blink an eye if I see it in context, particularly in that field of how birth
order in the family can affect you psychologically or in any other way.

In other words, I myself would never use that phrasing EXCEPT in siuch a
context.

I have been asking this question a lot in my class. I have students from
the Middle East and they come from large families with a lot of siblings. I am
interested to know where they are in the family so I ask them are you the
oldest, youngest or in the middle? There is no reason to ask except that I am
curious. Sometimes we might ask that of people out of curiosity and may be
thinking of how that has affected them. At any rate, it's unlikely we will
adopt a new question word about that because it's not so culturally important.

In many cultures, knowing birth order is important. Simply asking
"Are you the first-born?" is sufficient to get you the answer - No,
I'm second/third, etc. Recognising that sometimes, the first-born may be a girl
and that for the family, what may count is the first-born son, even if he is
not the oldest in the family.

Very thought provoking exercise. I am the 6th child of 9 siblings. My
school teachers and colleagues used to ask me: "Are you the first son to
your parents?" "Which position are you compared to your
siblings?"

Discussing birth order isn't and never has been a major priority with
English speakers (except perhaps for royalty). Can you invent such a word for
general use? Make a word, define it and tell us how to use it in a question and
what kind of answers it would elicit. However, I can hardly imagine any
situation in which it would be a necessary word to have.

Here, lots of you have focused on birth order which I put here as an
example to illustrate what I meant. what English lacks in general is a question
word to ask for order in all situations. using what + order or number in many
situations does not work.

Here's one wh- question starting with
'Where...............................?'
Where do you stand in your sibling series ?
At which number do you stand/ count in your family?
What is the order of your appearance in the family ? ( like they say while
introducing dramatist personae!!!!)

I think every language has its pros and cons. No language is free from
it. Another word I would like to present is the pronoun 'you'. In English
language, when you are addressing someone as 'you', the person can be singular
male, singular female, plural males, plural females or plural males and females
both. You come to know about the gender and number after reading a little more
in the passage or conversation.
Look at Arabic. How do the pronoun 'you' stand in Arabic?
Anta [you-male]
Anti [you-female]
Antum [you-males]
Antuma [you-females]

The problem is not necessarily confined to the order of birth. It is
also related to the the order of merit in a class or for that matter in a
competition. I agree that whichth has no equivalent in English adding that
every language has its own peculiarities which is also another way of saying
that every language has its own potential as well as limitations.

As far as I know, relatively few languages have a "whichth" or
"whatth".

Mohammad speaks a language that has it; for him it is therefore
"logical". Those of us who don't speak such a language find it
"illogical" (I use both of these terms NOT with a mathematical logic
meaning, but a human speech semantics meaning).

Just like English has a present continuous and a present perfect - which many
other languages don't have. For us these are so logical that when we learn
other languages, we want to find the equivalent, and if there isn't an
equivalent, we over-use what appears to be the closest in the new language. For
the speakers of that language, having a present continuous and a present
perfect are "illogical". For us English speaking learners of that
language - let us say French - to say French is missing a very useful device or
two is us imposing our language logic (in a potentially offensive way) on that
of another language with another logic.

In language analysis there is always that interesting area of both personal
development as well as the furthering of linguistic knowledge - how much does
our own language affect our perceptions of language in general (unfortunately
some, like Chomsky and many another effective monolingual, don't seem to
realise this) - and, therefore, if we see any "gaps" - do we see gaps
ONLY because our own language has an item?

Notice I am not going to disparage English for not having such a
question word, nor I want to make a change. moreover, this is not the drawback
of English. however, what i'm saying is that in different situations different
ways have to be used to convey the same concept, yet in some situations it may
be misunderstood. having such a word could have resolved the issue.

once I asked a student what number are you in your family, he said
number 10. I asked how many siblings do you have? he said 2. the number he was
referring to was the number behind his sport shirt owing to his passion toward
Messi

That is all too true, Mohammad - having such a word could resolve
issues.

However, as far as I know - and I come from a "clan society"
[Irish-Scottish] where big families traditionally are the norm - and my wife is
one of seven children - she is Italian, another traditonally big family society
- and my Australian indigenous friends/family also "big family" peoples,
we have never ever had any problems discussing who comes where in the order of
the children, which of my aunties and uncles is second oldest, and so on. For
Australian and Papuan tribal societies (and others), it gets even more complex,
because all the children in the clan are considered classifcatory brothers and
sisters, which means in a village over 50 kids could be graded by age firstly
in their immediate nuclear family, then in the clan as a whole.

Speakers of these languages normally do not even have a distinction between
"what", "which" or even "how" - and still have no
problems at all working it all out.

And this is the same for all cases where positional ordering is discussed. What
is even more interesting, is that most Australian and many Papuan languages
(and many others) do not even have numbers beyond 1, 2, sometimes 3, sometimes
4 and rarely 5. But people still manage to do things like arrange to meet after
a specific number of days for a meeting. On the other hand - and this is
perhaps a blessing, how old someone is in exact age is not important. BUT - the
position in the age hierarchy on the other hand is - everyone's position and
therefore rank in society is based on relative age, by knowing who is older and
who is younger.

Naghizide - you could say the kid gave the correct answer. The question
was ambiguous.

If I asked that quesiton to a native English speaking kid, I would have said
something like "where do you come in your family?" or "Are you
the oldest in the family?" or something else like that. As others have
already mentioned.

How the question is asked is culturally important - but more importantly
syntactically and semantically directs the answer. The direction also has a
cultural bias - position in the family is not a number, it is a relative age
thing - it is an ordinal ting.

About Me

I hail from Thamizh Nadu, a Southern state of India. I speak Thamizh, Thelugu, English and Hindi.

I served for 43 years as a teacher of English in schools and colleges in India, Ethiopia and Nigeria. I've published several articles on ELT and of general interest in the USA, Ethiopia and India. I've presented several papers in national and international conferences. I've written several course books for the English syllabuses of Bachelor of Engineering of Madras University, Anna University and JNTU, Hyderabad, for public consumption as well.